Everyone says that leftovers are “the best part of Thanksgiving,” but your leftovers can be so much more than dry meat on bread with mayonnaise. My new book Kitchen Matrix has 20 recipes for leftover turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, and cranberry sauce, along with a slew of tantalizing uses for extra veggies (and if you’re anything like me, you’ll have a lot of those). You’ll have to buy the book if you want all the recipes, but here are a few clever uses for leftover cranberry sauce. These are universal enough to accommodate almost whatever kind of cranberry sauce you’re starting with (even the canned kind).

Cook chicken parts in butter, rotating and turning as necessary, until browned on all sides; remove from the pan. Add chopped onion, garlic, and fresh ginger and cook until soft. Stir in cranberry sauce and a little chicken or turkey stock or white wine; add the chicken. Cover and cook over medium-low heat, turning the chicken occasionally until it’s cooked through. Garnish: grated orange zest.

My new dream job is to get healthier food onto the plates of more Americans. See below for an excerpt from my recent story in Time.

Could there be a better week to form a company specializing in vegan meals? As everyone knows, the World Health Organization last week labeled processed meat a carcinogen and said red meat was probably dangerous as well. Not news, exactly, but a further confirmation that plant-based diets are where it’s at.

It was the determination to get healthier food onto the dinner plates of more Americans that led me to leave the New York Times, where I had what most people would think was a dream job: as weekly Opinion columnist and the lead food writer for the Sunday Magazine. But really: Not only was I ready for something new, it felt like it was time to put my boots on the ground.

So when David Mayer contacted me, I was primed. Mayer is the lead investor in The Purple Carrot, a plant-based meal kit company founded in Boston by Andy Levitt last year. Dave, who never uses 100 words when he can use 1,000, wrote me a long e-mail that said, among other salient things, that he wanted to build a company so people would “cook meals with real food, talk about it, show their kids what cooking is and connect on that and what it means. Imagine the implications … if we could help …. hundreds of millions of Americans to eat vegan at least two nights a week. Make it easy, really good and affordable.”

In case you missed it, I’m joining The Purple Carrot as co-founder, partner and Chief Innovation Officer. Here’s a great piece by Matt Rodbard in Food Republic with some more details.

Photograph by Eric Tanner

Mark Bittman Put His Money Where His Mouth Is

Why the activist-columnist left journalism to run a vegan startup

In fairness, the offal was sent compliments of the kitchen.

Mark Bittman grabs the ramekin of chicken liver brûlée with a hand the size of an NBA power forward’s before breaking through the caramelized crust with a dagger of crusty bread. I’ve met the author of the best-selling VB6: Eat Vegan Before 6:00 for lunch at the Breslin, April Bloomfield’s New York City restaurant famous for lamb burgers and boards stacked with liverwurst and head cheese. “Today is a bad day,” says Bittman when asked about breaking his famous meat-and-dairy-free-during-daylight edict during our flowing conversation, which skips between millennial slackerdom, Bill Clinton and Bittman’s next chapter after leaving TheNew York Times in September: He is serving as chief innovation officer at vegan meal-kit delivery service Purple Carrot, which was officially announced this morning. “But, really, we are celebrating, so it’s not so bad,” he says with a laugh.

The lunch was part of a two-day media blitz promoting the author’s latest book, which was being released that day, a compilation of his popular New York Times Magazinecolumn Kitchen Matrix. Earlier in the morning, the tall and trim 65-year-old had been hawking the book on television and NPR, and later he will tape with the “really intense” Dr. Oz. So it’s clear the dude deserves a basket of beer-battered Long Island fluke and Bloomfield’s supreme pomme frites. “You should eat some of these,” he insists in a long-simmered Manhattan drawl. Bittman was raised in New York City’s Stuyvesant Town, and until earlier this year lived mostly in the Northeast — between Boston, Connecticut and New York City — before relocating to Northern California in January. “Living in Berkeley is fucking awesome,” he says with a smile. And with a new job building a plant-based cooking brand, his first full-time gig outside of media in over 30 years, the roaring startup economy might be pretty fucking awesome for Mark Bittman, too.

When you transform an apple by cooking, you may make it soft, fluffy, chewy, savory, sweet, or creamy—the potential is enormous. Yes, an apple loses some juiciness and freshness when you cook it, but as an ingredient, it’s just as versatile as potato.

This matrix explores cooked apples in various forms, at least some of which (I hope) you’ll find unexpected. All of the sweet versions are wonderful for either dessert or breakfast, while the savory ones make terrific side dishes for just about anything roasted or pan-cooked.

For 12 apple recipes, read this excerpt from Kitchen Matrix, on sale today. Prepare one of these recipes, or one of your own, and tag #MatrixChallenge. To pick up a copy of the book, click here.

This is the last official week of the Matrix Challenge, but now that the book is available, I hope you’ll keep the spirit of the challenge alive. Get creative with your cooking. Improvise. Then show off your dishes. If you make something from the cookbook, or one of my recipes inspires you to share something new, share it. Be proud of your matrices.

For even more inspiration, check out one of my Pork and Apples +3 ways recipes from the cookbook on Skinnytaste.com.

What is a healthy and affordable way to eat? How should we think about the Food Pyramid? How do we cut through all the competing ideas about what’s right, to understand how we should eat? And what policies could be changed to get Americans eating more healthily and sustainably? Watch my talk below at the New York Times Food for Tomorrow conference to hear my thoughts on how we should tackle some of these pressing questions.

From late spring until at least Thanksgiving, myriad local greens flood our markets, each worthy of the euphoria we tend to reserve for other seasonal produce.

Romaine is fine, but dandelion, tender lettuces, chard, and arugula (real arugula, not the “baby” kind they sell in most supermarkets) can be as flavorful as the juiciest tomato. You can make a different salad with these greens every day for weeks without repeating yourself.

This week’s Matrix highlights twelve of the most available (and wonderful) greens, divided into four categories—tender, crunchy, sturdy, and bold—though the distinctions are often blurred. In any case, don’t be constrained by my recommendations; many other greens will fill in here just fine.

To learn how to prepare salad greens 12 ways, read this excerpt from my new book Kitchen Matrixhere.

By now, you know the drill. Share one of these 12 salad recipes, or a favorite of your own using #MatrixChallenge. Celebrate these fresh leafy greens before the frost rolls in.

A few weeks ago I published my farewell opinion column in the New York Times. After five years, I felt ready to make the leap from writing about a broken food system to trying to do something about it. I had decided it was time to shift my focus toward activism and action.

In doing this, I wanted the help of the best and brightest people working to transform the way we grow and eat food in this country. These people had to develop positions – on the food system, among other things – that were based in reason, and whose policy and advocacy strategies are rooted not in politicking but in science. That was important to me and increasingly rare in a world where so many opinions are based on … well, previous opinions.

Wanted: healthy, green, affordable and fair solutions

I learned a lot about fact-based opinion while doing journalism and later writing opinion columns at the Times, and one of the people who helped me through this process was Ricardo Salvador, who is currently senior scientist and director of the Food and Environment Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists. (He’s also not only an intellectual crush of mine but like abrother to me.) At UCS, Ricardo works with citizens, scientists, economists and politicians to work towards transforming our current food system into one that endeavours to grow food that’s healthy, green, affordable, and fair.

In general, UCS – which follows the example set by the scientific community – shares information, seeks the truth, and lets their findings guide their conclusions. As a result, they’re heralded as a trusted resource for both their fairness and accuracy. That’s why UCS is regarded as one of the most reputable sources for rigorous and independent science, and has been for decades.

For this reason and so many more, I am excited to announce my new partnership with the Union of Concerned Scientists, where I will spend the next year as a Fellow working alongside Ricardo and his team. As good friends and now colleagues, we will embark on some of the innovative thinking, careful planning, and prioritized research needed to drive big changes in the national conversation around food systems, including (we hope!) the development of a book project. We’ll work to mobilize a broad range of voices and elevate important ideas.

An urgent need for leadership

Ricardo’s vision for a sustainable and just food system is one that I deeply respect and share – and one that we’ve written about together. This vision is especially important as we enter a critical political window to push both current and future leaders to talk about the crisis of our food system and outline an agenda for working toward a better one.

Ricardo and I also share an understanding of the urgency of these conversations. Our current food system works well for a handful of corporations at the expense of farmers, rural communities, taxpayers and food workers, to name just a few. The impact on the health of both our people and our planet is grave. The cost of this system is too high, the consequences too dire, and the practices and policies too outdated to allow them to continue without challenge. We need reform and we need leadership committed to ensuring access to healthy, affordable, and safe food for all Americans.
I can’t help but feel like I will be learning from the best as I work to tackle these challenging topics alongside some of the smartest scientists and advocates out there. And of course, I look forward to sharing what we learn with all of you.